To understand the operation of the novel damper piston of this invention, it may be helpful to briefly review the functioning of the conventional, prior art, regenerative feed system in liquid propellant guns. The regenerative feed system is basically a pressure intensifier or pressure amplifier in principle where the combustion chamber face of the system has a significantly greater area than the hydraulic face area of the propellant injection piston sections. Thus, an increase in combustion chamber pressure will be reflected by a greater increase in propellant injection pressure causing the propellants to spray into the chamber as the piston is forced rearward by the combustion chamber pressure. The injection flow rate is primarily a function of velocity of the piston assembly.
The most applicable known prior art is that exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,050,348 to patentee Graham. U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,803,975, 4,033,224, and 4,050,349 to patentees Elmore et al., Holtrop and Graham, respectively, may also be of interest.